Rhino Historic Tours: No Nukes

Back in early June – on the 6th, to be precise – we took a look back at the anniversary of Peace Sunday, an huge concert at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena where over 85,000 turned up to listen to music and, at least theoretically, to promote nuclear disarmament as well. If you go back and check out the piece, you’ll see that the bill featured a pretty impressive lineup, but while the show was undeniably done in an effort to draw attention to an important matter, it’s fair to say that its success was seriously outshined by the far-higher profile event which kicked off 35 years ago today.

Organized by Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE), an activist group founded by Jackson Browne, Graham Nash, Bonnie Raitt, Harvey Wasserman, and John Hall, the so-called No Nukes shows took place September 19-23, 1979 at Madison Square Garden, featuring a variety of high-profile participants from multiple locations on the musical spectrum, including the aforementioned artists – well, except for Wasserman, who’s really not known for his singing – as well as the Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Ry Cooder, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Gil Scott-Heron, Jesse Colin Young, Raydio, Chaka Khan, Poco, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, and Mr. Nash’s regular cohorts, David Crosby and Stephen Stills…and that’s just the people who were on the triple live album that resulted from the event!

Unfortunately, the No Nukes album isn’t licensed for spinning on Spotify, but we’ve done our best to put together a playlist featuring as many of the studio versions of the songs that can be found on the document of the event. It’s not perfect, we admit, but it still gives you an idea of the kind of classic rock that was being doled out those days.